From the Bookshelf of Q&A with Josh Lanyon…

The Larton Chronicles

James Anson

Start date: December 1, 2011

Finish date: December 31, 2011

Discussion: Book of the Month Club

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Book of the Month Club

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What Members Thought

Mar 25, 2010 Josh rated it it was amazing

This remains one of my all time favorite books. It's sort of a cross between The Irish RM and Angela Thirkell. Just a gently paced, low key story about an ex-policeman who moves to a small rural village and falls in love with a hunting-mad squire. It's funny and tender and ninety percent of the romance is in the subtext. Just...delightful. ...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Feliz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: m-m, comfort-reads, humorous

This was a very fine read, slow,understated,laugh out loud funny and quietly humorous and very,very British. (as i said,it went over my non-Brit head at times,but didn't bother me, i just went with the flow) And so very different too, in no way comparable to other m/m books, with its vast cast of dozens of supportive characters each of who could've leapt right out of some Dorothy Sayers mystery and the "action" not even fade to black but just subtly hinted at in a way I often found more intrigui ...more

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May 18, 2009 Elisa Rolle added it

This is definitely an unusual gay romance, but once that I have no problem to recommend to who likes wonderful main characters, a bunch of worthy supporting characters and a fascinating and detailed setting, plus it has all the flavor of an old classic english comedy.

Robert is a grumpy ex cop now mystery writer; he doesn't like the city, he doesn't like the crow, he really doesn't like either the cultural circles he has to frequent to promote his books. He has the fame to be caustic and unpleasa This is definitely an unusual gay romance, but once that I have no problem to recommend to who likes wonderful main characters, a bunch of worthy supporting characters and a fascinating and detailed setting, plus it has all the flavor of an old classic english comedy.

Robert is a grumpy ex cop now mystery writer; he doesn't like the city, he doesn't like the crow, he really doesn't like either the cultural circles he has to frequent to promote his books. He has the fame to be caustic and unpleasant, always criticizing the poor attempt at literature to whom he considers only amateur. Thanks to a sudden availability of money (he sold the right of one of his books for a movie), he decides to leave the city to find a secluded place in the country: Larton seems correspond to the characteristic he is searching, far from all the main route, without any particular historical interest, it's the perfect place. Robert bought the east lodge of a decrepit georgian mansion, while the dispossessed owner of the mansion lives now in the west lodge. He hasn't had the pleasure to meet the man, a army officer who is often abroad, but all around the village he listens to the gossip about him and his brothers and sisters, old name landowners that now have difficult to make the ends meet.

When finally Robert meets Michael he is surprised to find out that he is almost his age (don't know exactly, but I believe they are over forty at the beginning of the story), and all in all he is a pleasant man to frequent (Robert has no particular love for the old aristocracy... well truth be told, it seems that Robert has no particular love for the human genre at all, he is only fond of cats). Well Michael has a great fault, he is very much in love with his horses, and he drags Robert around on horse fairs and various events, cementing a bond that, later in the book, we understand is not only friendship. There is no big love declaration, but a slow and continuous taking possession Robert's time, till the moment in which Robert declares to Michael his availability to give a try to "them", to live together.

Michael and Robert set up home together, Michael with his dog and horses, Robert with his cats and books, Michael with his paddock, Robert with his garden, Michael with his incapacity to deal with money, Robert with his scrupulous family budget: fantastic the scene in which Robert clear the bank balance of Michael as Christmas present, telling him that in this way he has no more to worry, and Michael was never worried from the first.

It's very good as the author accompanies the reader through Michael and Robert's relationship, passing from friendship to love without any shock, with a natural flowing. I found charming when I read Robert remembering an event of their life for the second time in the book, and at first I though it was a forgetfulness of the author, but when it happened again I realized that it was a way for the author to prove to the reader that Michael and Robert was becoming an "old" couple, with a lot in common, with their happy moment, but also with their little quarrels, with joy and sadness. All around them, the crazy family of Michael, classic dispossessed aristocrats who still want to live like 100 years before, and all the people in the village, who welcomed Robert as a lost son, and are only happy that he decides to take care of the daredevil who was Michael.

There is no sex in the book, or at least, no sex that the reader witnesses: when it's the moment for Michael and Robert to have their private moments, the reader is gently pushed out the room, and they do what they want behind closed door. The behavior of the village and of the relatives is the same: we all know that something is happening between them, but it's not matter to speak... no sex please, we are English! Anyway, I didn't miss it, I was more than happy with their tender moment, and the aftermath that found them cuddling in front of the fire, or lamenting that they are too old to do such things.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1903531047/?... ...more

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Dec 07, 2011 Bookwatcher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: romance, favorites, glbt-gay, very-funny, few-or-no-sex-scene

What an English ex-cop and writer have in common with a womanizer Irish horse breeder?

Well nothing... and they you said it all the time to you.

What two, not young, but neither old, men so different can talk about? How can they find mutual friends? How can... hang out with each other??? They barely stand to be in the same room! Robert think Michael drink too much, talk too much, smile too much. Michael, for obvious reasons, think Robert is too serious, sulk too much, and complain too much... ...more

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Oct 15, 2009 Eve rated it it was amazing

delightful, enchanting and full of light chuckles... it's a gay romance that leaves the bedroom stuff to your imagination, but highlights the day-to-day life of an gay couple and their, erm, quirky surroundings. ...more

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